SSD replacements

Question

I have: * XPS 8940 PC with 2TB (bought here on Dell site in 2021) and * Inspiron 13 7378 laptop with 128GB (bought here on Dell in 2018). Most pressing issue is I would like to clone and upgrade my PC to a 4TB drive as its at about 500 GB free now. Ideally I would then move its current 2TB drive into the laptop. Obviously I want to make sure I buy a compatible drive for the PC and that its drive can be read by the laptop. A year or 2 ago I tried to upgrade just the laptop SSD with a 1TB and it wouldn't accept it. SSD was brand new from Amazon and could be identified on PC, but when inserted to laptop it would not boot. I'm not sure if I did any steps wrong to make it incompatible with the laptop but I followed the same steps I did the only time I ever upgraded drives myself on my previous PC (cloned C hard drive to new one, replaced old drive with new). I gave up on it after a couple days and returned the SSD. Are there any limitations I will run into in this project from either the PC or the laptop? Nothing heavy on either, just for MS Office, internet and light video editing. Any suggestions for which drive/s to get, was leaning towards Samsung. Haven't bought anything yet. Plan to buy new drive/s in a week or 2 (at minimum the most important the 4TB ).

ejn63 · Answer

The drive in the 8940 is no doubt NVMe, which the notebook you have will not take -- it will only take SATA M.2 drives.

You can clone the existing drive to a new NVMe drive for the desktop system, but the only way you can use the existing SSD with that notebook is by mounting it in an external case for use as a USB drive.

megafan2000 · Answer

@ejn63​ that's how I tried to do it a year or 2 ago with an external case. So chances are I bought the wrong type of SSD? Going through my Amazon history it says I ordered and returned a Samsung 970 EVO 1 TB NVM.e in March 2022 which you say wouldn't work. So you're saying I have to find a SATA M.2 drive for the laptop? Physically speaking, the drive I had and the one on the laptop looked identical.

ejn63 · Answer

The 970 Evo will not work in the Inspiron 7378.

SATA and NVMe drives are very simliar in appearance but completely different electrically. If you want to upgrade the notebook, you need a SATA M.2 drive. They are still available.

https://www.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/wd-blue-sa510-sata-m-2-ssd?sku=WDS100T3B0B

Samsung and others also still make them.

megafan2000 · Answer

@ejn63​ OK thank you for the insight. I'll look into those with next week's check. This weekend I'll open up the PC to confirm that it has an NVMe drive as it should. There was something I came across regarding Windows UEFI booting (?) if a drive > 2TB. Is that gonna be an issue since I'm after a 4 TB?

megafan2000 · Answer

Successfully cloned and upgraded the 8940 with a Samsung 990 Pro (and doubled the RAM) over the weekend. Currently monitoring its paces before wiping the original 2 TB Samsung SSD.

Confident to try to upgrade the laptop in a few weeks when funds replenish.

Inspiron

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